When it comes to city planning, the performance of most urban local authorities has been below par. Radical reform measures are needed such as the compulsory and competitive tendering system, followed in the UK
To make our cities more liveable and inclusive, the Government of India has embarked on a 100 smart cities project. Also, the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation aims to transform 500 cities. The focus is on core infrastructure services like adequate and clean water supply, sanitation and solid waste management, urban mobility, public transportation, affordable housing for the poor, power supply, information technology connectivity, e-governance and citizen participation.
The Government has also launched the ‘Housing for all by 2022’ mission that is being pushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The mission seeks to provide 20 million housing units for the lower income group and includes the slum rehabilitation project.
For conservation of heritage, the Union Government has launched the Historic City Development Augmentation Yojana, which will initially cover 12 cities viz Ajmer, Amrawati, Amritsar, Badami, Dwarka, Gaya, Kanchipuram, Mathura, Puri, Varanasi, Velankanni and Warangal.
The Swachch Bharat Abhiyan is yet another major initiative by the Government that covers 4,041 statutory towns and villages in the country to provide sanitation and toilet facilities. The cleaning of the rivers is a high-priority agenda of the Government of India. The National Mission for Clean Ganga aims to clean the river Ganga during the next five years.
These missions can bring radical urban transformation in India. However, their success is largely dependent upon the performance of the urban local bodies and their planning capacity, together with legal, institutional and financial reforms. looking at the dismal record of the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan, the future appears grim. Some radical thinking is needed.
In past decades, there has been a significant rise in urban growth, along with the workforce. Instead of the earlier practices of departmental works being contracted out to third parties, urban local bodies are now increasingly adopting public-private partnerships.
However, there are limitations and failures of public-private partnerships, where profits are marginal, or where doing business is not easy, and payments are irregular due to political interventions. Public-private partnerships also tends to make the urban local bodies complacent and they tend to lean on the private party to deliver.
This situation is not only prevalent in India, but even in developed countries like the United Kingdom. In pursuit of ‘value for money’, the UK Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher evolved the concept of ‘compulsory and competitive tendering’ for public services. This was incorporated in the UK local Government Act, 1988.
In its Preamble it states, “An Act to secure that local and other public authorities undertake certain activities only if they can do so competitively; to regulate certain functions of local and other public authorities in connection with public supply or works contracts; to authorise and regulate the provision of financial assistance by local authorities for certain housing purposes.”
Under this, the local authorities are no more the sole providers of public services like electricity, public transport, housing or sanitation but they have to compete with other local bodies and private sector units. The programme aims at “rolling back the frontiers of the state, and revitalising the enterprise.” The consequential working strategy involved the following: De-nationalisation of public corporations, sale of public corporations/Government assets, liberalisation or removing restrictions on competition for public services, and contracting out public services by competitive tendering.
The following are the premises and objectives of this strategy: To provide a high level of public services; to save money and to obtain better value for public money; survival of the fittest; to save management time; to obtain expertise not available in-house; to retain flexibility; to re-establish management control.
Competitive tendering in the UK has opened up an alternative to the monopolies of urban local bodies and public-private partnerships in the pursuit of the delivery of services. Competition helps to reduce the burden on the state and lethargy of the urban local bodies.
The local and public service authorities are obliged to follow the prescribed system for tendering of its services. This has resulted in a drastic change in the Government structure, security of employment and the overall attitude of the officials towards the public.
In case a bid is not in favour of the existing local body or public sector, the employees have to find an alternative job. As a result, there is a considerable slimming down of Government bodies and corporations.
A close interaction is maintained with the workers’ unions in enforcing the provisions of the compulsory and competitive tendering system. Many of the local authorities have geared up to face the competition, whereas some local bodies which were too big, unproductive or unable to change their working culture have been wound up.
In India, with an all-round dissatisfaction with the performance of the local Governments in the face of mounting establishment expenditure and losses, there is a serious concern to adopt such radical measures.
(The writer is an architect and urban planner. He was a Commissioner (Planning) at Delhi Development Authority and a member of the UN Habitat Human Settlement Network)